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by ashisfriendly



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21993655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashisfriendly/pseuds/ashisfriendly
Summary: Ben Solo lives. That's it.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 9
Kudos: 165





	Home

There’s still a faint hum radiating through the air, against her skin, through her veins. She tries so hard to concentrate on it, to reach it, hang onto it, make any sense of it.

She can’t.

She won’t.

It’s clear what happened. There’s no amount of energy that can undo it. She can’t help, she can only watch him. Say his name because she just has to, like before, like when he was finally here, completely whole, in front of her. 

She holds him, keeping her thumb against the pulse point on his wrist, hanging onto each slow, faint beat of his heart. His skin is cold, slick with sweat, his chest barely rising and falling anymore. She tries, she tries so hard to reach and pull and give him any life force she can, but she has nothing, not right now. Not when she absolutely needs it.

_Ben._

He doesn’t move, nothing changes. She tries his name again, this time on her lips, but it’s hardly a whisper. A breath.

Nothing.

So she waits, staying with him because she can’t abandon him now. Not when he’s given her everything, not when he’s been with her for so long. Not when she knows -- she can feel -- that he doesn’t want to be alone anymore.

Rey bends over him, placing her forehead on his chest, her thumb pressing into his wrist as if she can just will him to live, for his lungs to work, for his heart to beat. 

_Ben._

_You did it._

_We won._

_Be with me._

Nothing.

This place still haunts her. There’s nothing left, but there are whispers tugging at her. Just memories, horrific and all consuming, but she tries to feel the fabric of Ben’s sweater against her skin, concentrate on the slow beat against her thumb to push it all away. She thinks of the waves on Ahch-To, how the water would spray her when she woke up in the morning, her skin always covered in a fine layer of water. She never did get used to it, the abundance of water in the galaxy. In the early mornings on the moon of Ajan Kloss, she’d walk into the small lake and swim through the cold water and let the dawn’s rising sun dry her skin. Trees, too, trees were a gift. Leaves and grass, rolling hills of green. When she wasn’t running the course or calling for the ancestral Jedi, she was touching moss on rocks and marveling at the natural shade provided by the branches above. 

Life. There was so much of it.

_Give him life._

Rey swallows and raises her head. She drops his wrist and it falls limp to the ground. She doesn’t leave, she can’t yet, but she sits back and looks up, fires burning in the sky, smoke smoldering from falling ships, an assortment of others flying through the air. The stars are barely visible through it all, but she spots a few, cherishes them, too. Just like the waters, the green, the life.

There’s movement and a push into her chest as she hears herself gasp for air. Big, gulping gasps as if she’s never filled her lungs. She blinks, throwing her fist to her chest.

She’s fine.

She turns.

“Ben!”

Her voice cracks and bounces against the stone all around them. She’s frozen, but she watches him take another big gulp of air, coughing as he turns, his hand reaching out for her, weak and shaking. She wants to take it, but she can’t move. She’s in shock, maybe. 

He was dead. Moments ago, he was dead.

“A little help,” he croaks. Coughs. “Maybe?”

She blinks and nods, her own lungs working again. She grasps his hand and pulls him up, his face twisted in pain as he moves. She apologizes and he shakes his head, assuring her he’s okay. As soon as he is upright again, his free hand lifts to her face and he holds on, his thumb moving under her eye, across to her ear, his hand sliding into her hair. He holds on there as if she’s steadying him completely. Maybe she is, everything does feel sturdier now, with his life back here again.

“Rey.”

He coughs again and winces. She can feel it, the injury to both of his legs, something splintered in his hip. The weak rhythm of his lungs and heart, slowly pushing blood through his body. He blinks and looks down at himself, as if he, too, is only just evaluating the damage. 

“I shouldn’t be here.”

“What?”

Ben shakes his head, mumbling something she can’t hear. They need to go, he needs medical attention, something scientific and not at all what she understands, to heal him. She can’t do it.

“We have to go. You need help.”

“I can’t walk.”

“I’ll carry you,” Rey says and stands, nodding to herself. 

She feels like a kid, innocent and dumbfounded, lost, completely small and not as if she just destroyed something so giant and evil that it killed her. She fought to bring balance, but there wasn’t anything in those books or Leia’s training about what to do after. How to _be_ after. 

Rey repeats in her head what they’ll do, step by step, how they can get out of here, they’ll go back to the Resistance. The Resistance. She looks back up to the sky, ships still gliding through the air, but less now. So much smoke. Her mind races with images of pilots, engineers, new friends, new family. Droids. Finn. Poe.

Her list gets longer and every training instinct is telling her to slow down, but it’s hard with fear buzzing around her, tugging at her chest and seeping into her veins. She’s not scared, not anymore, not since Ben woke up, but the feeling is creeping along every fiber of her body.

Ben laughs. Coughs. Winces.

“Carry me,” he croaks through another cough, shaking his head.

Rey looks down at him. His smile isn’t as big as before, but it’s there, completely unfamiliar and like a memory all the same. She’s never heard him laugh. Ever. It sounds nice, rich and low and easy. Does he know when he last laughed? There was a time when she couldn’t remember laughter, either.

“We have to go,” she says again.

“Rey.”

His smile fades now, slowly transforming his face to something she’s seen before. It’s sad and angry, with a complete lack of hope. She crouches down, worried he’s going to fall over again. Die again. Leave her again. Something pulls from him, something vacant, not what she felt before, when Palpatine was here, instead there’s an emptiness around him. Not completely, but it’s there, unmistakably. And fear. So much fear. Regret. Guilt. It’s choking her.

“It’s okay,” she says.

His eyes move over her face and she desperately wants to hold onto him, shake him maybe, and let him know she always knew. Even when he screamed at her as his blood hit the snow and she was sure she was going to die by his hand, she knew. That he doesn’t have to be afraid.

His chin trembles as he tries to speak, but nothing comes out except a weak sob. She can see it, inexplicably, what he fears, what he’s done. It races through her mind in a blurred flash. People screaming, red flying through bodies, explosions big enough to engulf a whole planet, children running and being caught by blasters. There’s also Ben, alone in a sea of black, alone and screaming, begging for help in complete darkness. The fall of Han’s body.

Rey blinks it away, clears her head. Takes a breath that she wishes Ben would match, but knows his lungs can’t handle right now. She can hear Ben screaming, not in front of her, but through her head and down her body. Loud, terrified, all consuming.

Rey grabs his hand and holds it between both of hers as if she can calm what’s stirring inside him.

“Leia -- you’re mother -- told me that fear is worse than hate. Worse than love.”

Tears fall down Ben’s cheeks and Rey is crying too, her voice shaky, but her smile at the memory of all those times they trained together fly through her. There’s a flash of anger, she feels it and is sure it’s in Ben, too, at the unfairness of it all. Leia never trained him. She never trained her son. Because she was afraid.

Rey takes a breath, closes her eyes, let’s it pass. 

It tugs at Ben, that feeling, and she squeezes his hand and opens her eyes, looking straight into his.

“Fear will cut you off from the light, it’ll tangle your feelings and lead you down the wrong path.” Rey swallows, reaching for him, holding his face, pushing his hair away from his eyes, darkened again, by fear, by sadness. She’s unsure. Maybe he is, too. “Ben, I knew. I always knew.”

There’s a release that flows through him. His shoulders fall and his eyes lighten, the corners of his mouth lift again in a smile that almost looks effortless. Almost. He reaches for her, his hands tugging at her waist until their bodies are flush, gripping each other tight, her face buried in his neck, his hands enveloping her back.

She holds onto him, hoping she isn’t hurting him but unable to control the need to have him close. They adjust together, moving so their bodies can have as many points of contact as possible. Ben’s hands move up and down her back, his fingers slowly sliding up into her hair and she lets out a breath at the touch.

She remembers touching him from so far away, how her hand buzzed before Luke caught hem, how her chest burned when he grabbed the necklace from Passana. How even she felt him inside her mind when he wasn’t there, when he wasn’t trying to get in. Snoke said he fabricated their connection, and maybe he did, but she’ll take this one thing from him, gladly. 

“Rey,” Ben whispers, his voice still rough with new life. “I knew, too.”

Rey pulls away from him, her fingers still clinging to his shirt. The color has drained from his face and she knows she needs to get them out of here, get him to the Resistance base so he can be taken care of, healed, but moving away from him even more feels absolutely impossible. His hands fall from her hair, holding onto her waist, pulling her closer as if to make up form the slight loss of contact so she could look at him.

“What?”

“I knew you weren’t going to turn. Even when I felt it -- I saw it -- I just knew it wasn’t the way. Not your way. But I needed you. I didn’t care how, I just needed you.” Ben holds her face, his hand moving up her check, his thumb brushing above her eyebrow. His eyes move there and he does it again. Is she bleeding? His eyes fall back to hers as he swallows. “With me.”

“Ben.”

Rey’s fingers dig and curl into Ben’s sweater and she pulls until their lips connect. He’s warm and strong against her and she wraps her whole body around him as if she could swallow him whole. She wants to be careful of his injuries, but it’s hard to do that while savoring each rise of his chest against hers, the movement of his lips and push of his fingers, anything and everything that reaffirms him. Alive. 

Life.

She moves and he hisses and Rey pulls away from him. 

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.” His fingers slip to the back of her neck and pull and he kisses her again. “Just a scratch.”

She laughs. He laughs. Their teeth bump and Ben winces again so Rey pushes off of him and stands up, suddenly needing to figure out how to get them out of here. 

Rey looks down at Ben. He’s watching her, one thick eyebrow pushed down in easy observation. He’s leaning back on one hand, his body slumped. The longer she looks at him, that eyebrow starts to lift and he... smirks. It’s completely foreign on him, but looks natural. Somehow, the more she takes him in, the more different he looks, but it all feels familiar. Like a memory she’s made up but can feel, hear, and see completely.

“What now?” he asks, his voice dry with humor, but lost just the same. 

His smile fades and the fear is sneaking in behind his eyes. That, the fear, will take a long time to root out of him. Out of her, too. She’s not sure if she will be able to unsee herself on the throne, what she could’ve been, where she came from. It’ll be harder for Ben, it may take his whole life to right his wrongs and to find himself, his true self in the process. He can do it. She knows. She’ll be there to witness every step. She knows he’ll be there for hers, too.

Rey reaches for Ben and helps him stand up. He’s heavy and big, but they’ll get out of here. They’ll get to the moon of Ajan Kloss and she will see her friends -- her family -- and Ben can heal. 

He’ll need a lot of time to heal. To rebuild. To attone. She will, too. For herself. For Ben. For the galaxy.

“Now,” Rey says, leaning against him, steadying them. His head lolls toward her until their temples touch. “We go home.”


End file.
